Columbia Square retail spaces dedicated

City of Cincinnati staff, representatives of developer Al Neyer, Inc., and Columbia Tusculum residents and community council members celebrated completion of the $10 million retail district of Columbia Square with a ribbon-cutting last Thursday.

The ceremony was held at One Columbia Square, a 48,000-square-foot office and restaurant building at Columbia Parkway and Delta Avenue that opened over the summer.

"This is a very important project to us, and obviously important to the community and important to the city," says Jim Neyer, vice president of real estate development for Al Neyer, Inc.  "This is truly community development.  The community has been invested in this project for more than ten years, and they had the vision to take an underperforming urban property and transform it into the center of the community."

One of the two new retail buildings will house Anytime Fitness, a 4,000-square-foot, 24-hour fitness facility.

Bruegger's Bagels, which will occupy one of two retail outlots, will begin construction within the next several weeks.

And Interiors by Kurtinitis, which has been a Columbia Parkway fixture for 65 years, has finished an expansion that now gives them 10,000 square feet of showroom space.

Arlene Golembiewski, president of the Columbia Tusculum Community Council, says that the visioning process for the site has been going on for more like twenty years.

"Some things take a long time," she says.  "But good things are worth waiting for."

At buildout, the $19 million Columbia Square will include One Columbia Square, three multi-tenant retail buildings totalling 25,000 square feet, and an additional single-tenant building that could house a bank or a restaurant.

Golembiewski hopes that Columbia Square is just the beginning of bringing back the access to goods and services that once existed along Columbia Parkway, between Delta and Stanley avenues.

"A healthy business district is vital to everything we do in the community," she says.

Writer: Kevin LeMaster
Sources: Jim Neyer, vice president of real estate development, Al Neyer, Inc.; Arlene Golembiewski, president, Columbia Tusculum Community Council
Photography by Kevin LeMaster